Odds of Hanging On
If you're good at following procedures and paying attention to all the tiny details of your job, you should have no problem hanging on in this industry. This career is at a pretty sweet intersection between being specialized enough to keep you in demand and low-stress enough to make it easy to stick with it.
In other words, once you're in, you're there to stay. The year of experience you need to get in is like a test drive, so you can know for sure whether or not you enjoy being a lab rat. If you make it through the whole year and still love what you're doing, you can keep that white coat and wear it with pride anywhere in the country.